


Bother Me (you stubborn glitch)

by SlimReaper



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort, Developing Relationship, Do robots get sick?, Domestic Fluff, I need fluff like air, M/M, Sick Character, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, dratchet - Freeform, idk they do now, iopele
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6227812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlimReaper/pseuds/SlimReaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drift's sick. Ratchet intervenes. </p><p>Whether Drift likes it or not, dammit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bother Me (you stubborn glitch)

Ratchet felt the unhealthy roil of Drift’s field the instant he stepped through the door of the swordsmech’s hab suite, and that was all the assurance he needed that he’d done the right thing not only in coming to check on him despite Drift’s assurances that he was fine, but also in using the code Drift had given him for emergencies to enter when he hadn’t answered the door.

“ _Just a little tired,_ my aft,” Ratchet growled, repeating the excuse Drift had given him for canceling their date. “You’re not tired, you’re _sick._ Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Ratchet!” Drift gasped, sitting bolt upright from his sprawl on the couch as shock filled his EM projections, mingling uncomfortably with embarrassment for a bare instant before he withdrew his field as much as he could. “I’m not–”

Ratchet had already circled the couch and he fixed him with a glare that stopped the lie before it could leave his lips. He nodded approvingly. “Good choice not to finish that sentence. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a little while now, you know. I’m getting pretty good at spotting when a mech has a virus.” Drift snorted at the sarcasm and Ratchet took advantage of his brief moment of distraction to snag his arm and plug in his diagnostic cables before the speedster could stop him. “Lay back down and let me take care of you.”

Dismay and nervousness joined the other emotions filling Drift’s field as he reached for the cables. “Ratchet, really, I’m _fine_. You just got off-shift; I’m sure the last thing you want to do in your down-time is more of the same stuff you’ve been doing in the medbay for the last twelve hours.”

Ratchet rolled his optics. “You know what? You’re right. I don’t want to reattach whatever pieces Cyclonus has knocked off Whirl again. I don’t want to try to explain to Tailgate why I don’t need to test him for whatever new rare disease he’s found on the datanet. I don’t want to listen to Rodimus’ latest lie about how he got his most recent suspicious injury like I don't already know he's been racing on the engineering levels, or try to figure out how the frag Brainstorm turned a 5-ingredient recipe for energon-brittle candy into a toxic slag that’s both corrosive _and_ poisonous.” 

Drift nodded and started to gesture toward the door, clearly about to urge Ratchet to go back to his own hab and get some rest after what had truly been a shift from the pit, but Ratchet caught his fever-hot hands in his own before he could. 

“But this isn’t any of that. And being there for the mech I love when he needs me? I want to do that _all_ the time, Drift. Please let me.”

The speedster looked up at him with wide optics, momentarily stunned speechless. “Oh, Ratch,” he finally whispered, and Ratchet felt the fight go out of him. “I love you too, so much. I just… didn’t want to bother you.”

"You're fragging well _supposed_ _to_  bother me when you need me, you stubborn glitch," Ratchet said as he rested his chevron against Drift’s helm crest, fondness warring with exasperation in his spark. How long would it be before Drift really trusted that Ratchet wasn’t going to dump him the instant he crossed some arbitrary line and became  _too much trouble?_  The only way to prove that he wasn’t going to do that was to just keep on not doing that, for as long as it took to make the point sink in.

He had every intention of not doing that until Drift finally believed he never would.

But right now his medical protocols were giving him a readout of Drift’s condition, and while it wasn’t anything terribly serious, the poor mech was certainly ill enough to feel miserable. Processor ache, churning tank, various glitches in his motor that reduced his stamina… yeah, this was one pit of a minor illness.

And Drift may have been used to getting through such things without anyone to look after him, but Ratchet was damn well determined that he would never be left to take care of himself alone like that again, not while he was functional. Already sending a text to First Aid asking him to send the medbay drone to Drift’s hab with a few doses of meds, he uploaded a code that would temporarily override some of the error messages that were clogging Drift’s processor to help a little bit until they arrived. 

The way Drift sighed and slumped gratefully against the back of the couch was all the proof the medic needed that the code had worked and his headache was gone. 

Ratchet took shameless advantage of that moment of relief. He had one arm under Drift’s knees and the other around his shoulders in an instant, and lifted, spun, and pushed the swordsmech into a fully supine position on the couch. The maneuver was so fast that Drift hadn’t even had time to protest what was happening before he was flat on his back and looking up at a very smug medic. 

“There, see how much better that feels? Isn’t it so much nicer when you just obey my every command?” Ratchet said archly as he whipped the heating tarp off the back of the couch and tucked it around him, and Drift rolled his optics and tried not very successfully to hide a smile.

“If we’re gonna play that way, Ratch, my safeword is dilithium crystals,” he shot back with a cheeky grin. But beneath the teasing, his field pulsed with gratitude and affection, and something that felt a lot like awe that Ratchet really was going to stay with him when Drift couldn’t do anything to earn his attention or repay him for his efforts.

Yes, one day he’d convince the speedster that he didn’t have to _earn_ anything from him, but for now, Ratchet simply pressed a kiss to his forehelm before unplugging his cables and standing up. “I’m going to get you some warm energon–it’ll settle your tank–and you’d better stay put right there or I’ll spank you,” he added with a stern glare.

Drift snuggled deeper into the heating tarp and his optics twinkled. “Ooh, promise?”

Ratchet snorted and stood up, heading over to the energon dispenser and entering the medical override code that allowed him to customize the blend he wanted for his courtmate. “Get better first,” he said, winking at Drift over his shoulder. “Then we’ll see.”


End file.
